A corrections officer remains hospitalized today after she collapsed this week during a training drill involving pepper spray.

Joann Ross-Haney is in fair condition in Allegheny General Hospital. Relatives have said she had been in a coma, said Washington County Correctional Facility Warden Joseph Pelzer.

Ms. Ross-Haney, who previously worked for more than a decade as a corrections officer in Cambria County, recently was hired as a part-time guard in Washington. As a new employee, she had been at the end of cadet training, which includes exposure to pepper spray, the warden said.

The training program, run by the county, is approved annually by the state Department of Corrections, he said.

Though Ms. Ross-Haney uses medication for treatment of an unspecified heart condition, her doctor had cleared her for the training.

The final phase was to have been a written exam.

The warden said Ms. Ross-Haney, 48, and nine other cadets endured the pepper spray, and she seemed fine afterward.

After the spray, the cadets were trained to douse themselves with water to remove the irritant from their bodies and clothing.

"Everything was fine and she had a normal reaction," Mr. Pelzer said today.

"Fifteen to 20 minutes later she experienced what was happening to her," he continued. "Everything is on video. Visually, there was more going on than a reaction to the pepper spray."

In a pre-employment physical, he said, she was cleared for the training.

In interviews with her trainers, Ms. Ross-Haney said she experienced pepper spray exposure in her previous job. It was not expected to cause complications this time.

The warden said investigations by state police and his staff have not determined what caused Ms. Ross-Haney's problem.

The Washington County jail employs 72 corrections officers, 52 of them full time, the warden said.

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